The challenge for 52Frames this week is Common Object. I had in my mind that I would do my paint brushes and/or tubes of paint. In the end I did some tins of printing ink and a palette knife. I chose to use oil pastel. Visually I would say this is the least successful thing I have done so far… probably wrong subject, wrong medium and wrong format!! Hey ho. If I was not using my concertina book it is definitely something I would have done again. However I really like the discipline of not being able to redo and just having to get on and finish what I started. I think I learnt more by doing this than I have in a long time.

I have real trouble with geting the perspective and angles right on geometric shapes, so doing this image was good practice. The green tin is surprisingly ok. I reworked the others a lot and they are still not quite right, which I find very distracting. The picture is also just not very interesting. I did however enjoy further work in oil pastel and as it’s not brilliant there was nothing to lose by experimenting. I used zest it to make them smooth, scraped back and used a palette knife. However the book is so small it is really tricky as they are not a precise medium. I like the texture I got into the background, particularly the area of shadow, and the result on the green tin.

cans of printing ink in oil pastel